@Ben Hocking If subcategories are viewed from the point of inheritance then correct. Although it is a matter of perspective.
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PhilotoMay 26 '11 at 13:06

1

Supercategories may be technically correct, following the -script and -classes analogue, but parent categories sounds better to me in this case.
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HugoMay 26 '11 at 13:24

2

@Philoto, I did not mean to imply that subclasses and superclasses were subcategories and supercategories, merely that they followed the same pattern as subscript/superscript that @Third Idiot gave.
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Ben HockingMay 26 '11 at 14:36

@Hugo following that reasoning, subcategories should be child categories?
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AttackingHoboMay 26 '11 at 18:41

For folders the term parent folder is usually used. And since categories are quite similar to folders, you may want to use parent category for higher-level categories. Or you can use upper-level categories.

Welcome to EL&U. You're quite right, for OP's context (categories) it's meaningless to talk about a prefix for a higher-level category than the top one. He just has to go through all lower levels and add an extra sub- to each, since the original category has turned out to be a subcategory!
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FumbleFingersMay 26 '11 at 22:54

@FumbleFingers: Thank you for taking the effort to explain my answer. I appreciate your input and I am glad to be part of this community.
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JamieJun 8 '11 at 18:52

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np - I hope you'll grace our pages more in future. Don't worry too much about where the votes go (or don't, in your case here). Sometimes a more 'interesting' answer does get upvoted over a most 'accurate' one, but that's just democracy in action for you.
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FumbleFingersJun 8 '11 at 21:37

Hofstadter's later Metamagical Themas (monthly column in Scientic American, subsequently published as a fascinating single-volume) is full of musings where he starts at the 'day-to-day' level, and ends up considering things from some higher 'meta-perspective'. Brilliant graphic on the inside front cover, if you ever come across a copy.
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FumbleFingersJun 8 '11 at 21:46

@Fumble: I actually went out and bought that one after finishing GEB years ago (-:
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hippietrailJun 8 '11 at 23:26

I thought of meta- as well, but it's tied to something that is an abstraction and that might operate under different rules. So while snakes are a subcategory of reptiles, I wouldn't call reptiles a meta-category.
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WayneJul 5 '11 at 13:39

@Wayne: I think it's just a case of sub- having various opposites depending on the sense and root it's prefixed to and all sorts of stuff.
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hippietrailJul 6 '11 at 9:07